Police: Slain teen once shot father

Tuesday

Jul 24, 2007 at 2:00 AM

The police have shed new light on the life of Jacques Sellers, an 18-year-old North Carolina native, who was killed last Wednesday night by a bullet as he sat on a couch at 36 General Patton Drive in Hyannis.

PATRICK CASSIDY

HYANNIS — The police have shed new light on the life of Jacques Sellers and some of the neighbors on the street where he died.

Sellers, an 18-year-old North Carolina native, was killed last Wednesday night by a bullet that hit him in his side as he sat on a couch at 36 General Patton Drive in Hyannis.

The police have not charged anyone in the shooting, but two men arrested a day later as part of an ongoing drug investigation lived on the same street, according to information released yesterday by the Cape Cod Drug Task Force of the Massachusetts State Police Narcotics Unit.

The men — Darrell "D Block" Russ, 20, and Anthony "Little Ant" Russ, 19, both of 19 General Patton Drive — were arrested with a third man in New Bedford while leaving the apartment of a former Cape Cod resident.

Darrell Russ was charged with illegal distribution of cocaine and Anthony Russ was charged with conspiracy to commit illegal distribution of cocaine.

At least four other men were arrested in the past two weeks as part of the investigation initiated by the Falmouth police in April, including another pair of men from General Patton Drive who were arrested for a "drive-by" shooting last May on Chase Street, according to the Times' archives.

Anthony "Big Ant" Barrows, 20, of 33 General Patton Drive, and Brandon A. "Slim" Simpkins, 21, of 19 General Patton Drive, evaded police until they were stopped a week later in North Carolina for speeding.

No one was injured in the shooting.

At the start of their trial in October, a judge sentenced the men to time served as part of a plea deal.

In the most recent arrests, Barrows was charged with trafficking in cocaine and Simpkins was charged with conspiracy to commit illegal distribution of cocaine.

Simpkins is already in custody at the Barnstable County House of Correction on unrelated drug charges, police said.

The other men arrested were charged with similar drug crimes and another man, Junior Clark, 25, of 146 Stevens St., Hyannis, is a fugitive charged with illegal distribution of cocaine, the police said.

Police and residents of General Patton Drive have acknowledged that the neighborhood has had its problems with illegal drug activity but said that things there were improving in recent years.

A spokesman for the Raleigh, N.C., police department said he was not aware of a connection between Cape Cod drug dealers and North Carolina but that Sellers had been involved in a shooting in his home state.

On Oct. 17 Sellers shot his father after the two men struggled with a gun the older man had pointed at his son, Jim Sughrue, spokesman for the Raleigh police said yesterday.

"It was a family dispute," Sughrue said. "Eventually Jacques got control of the firearm and fired a shot and struck his father."

Both men were charged in the incident, Sughrue said.

The incident is the only record of Jacques Sellers committing a crime in North Carolina, Sughrue said. Friends and family have said that Sellers came to Cape Cod to start a new life.

Reached by telephone yesterday, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe declined to comment on any connection between the shooting case and recent drug arrests but said the investigation into Sellers' death is "intense and active."